About

Exploding Kittens

$8,782,571

pledged of $10,000 goal

219,382

backers

Exploding Kittens is a highly strategic kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette. Players take turns drawing cards until someone draws an exploding kitten and loses the game. The deck is made up of cards that let you avoid exploding by peeking at cards before you draw, forcing your opponent to draw multiple cards, or shuffling the deck.

The game gets more and more intense with each card you draw because fewer cards left in the deck means a greater chance of drawing the kitten and exploding in a fiery ball of feline hyperbole.

The game was created by Elan Lee (Xbox, ARGs), Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal), and Shane Small (Xbox, Marvel). We think this game combines all the things we're best at creating, and and put together this Kickstarter campaign because we can't build this without you.

So if you're into card games or laser beams or weaponized enchiladas, please help us make this game a reality. We think you'll love it as much as we do.

Hugs and
enchilada kisses,

-Elan, Matt, and Shane.

The Origin Story

Exploding
Kittens started when Shane Small proposed a game to Elan Lee where a joker was
inserted into a deck of cards and they took turns picking cards until the
joker came up. It was called “Bomb
Squad” and it wasn’t any fun at all.

Over the next
few weeks, two important things happened: First, after neglecting work, family, and a social life, Shane and Elan developed a rule-set that started working and brought the game
to life. Second, Matt Inman saw the game, thought it was super fun, and asked to
join the team. (btw, if Matthew Inman
ever asks you if he can join your team, the answer is “HELL YES”.)

We changed the name to "Exploding Kittens" and our little team was born.

BUT YOU'RE BLOWING UP KITTENS! NOT COOL, BUDDY.

We struggled with this a lot. We love the name Exploding Kittens, but we don't want to hurt kittens. We also don't want the kittens to be hurt by anyone else. Eventually we decided to explore the concept of the kittens blowing themselves up.

First, Matt tried drawing the kittens as the actual bombs:

But that felt too Angry Birds’ish.

Next, we tried making the kittens suicidal, but that felt terrible.

In the end, we realized that everyone understands feline shenanigans, and that could be our solution. Our kitties would not blow up out of malicious intent or negligence, but by doing the things that kittens do, like running across keyboards or chewing on things they shouldn't be chewing on.

From there, the rest of the cards fell into place, and the cards used to defuse the exploding kittens were items you'd use to defuse regular kittens.

HELP US BUILD THIS GAME

We wanted to put this project on Kickstarter because it's the fastest way for us to get the game into your hands and make improvements as a community. We think this game is great, but we need your help making it even better.

So, if a world full of weaponized pork missiles is a world you want to live in, please back this project and help us build this game.

Risks and challenges

Production of the game is simple: it's just a card game, so other than building the box it's a relatively straightforward product to make. The biggest challenge for us would actually be if you blow us out of the water. We're already working with our pals at Cards Against Humanity to make sure that no matter how many people pledge, everyone gets their Exploding Kittens quickly after the campaign ends. None of us want this to be a campaign where you spend the next two years getting fifty emails about production updates and delays. If you back this project, we want to be sure you can start blowing up your friends as soon as possible. This is why (for now) we're not offering t-shirts or other complicated reward tiers that would make the distribution process take a lot longer. We're keeping it as simple as possible: support our project and in return we'll send you the playable game.